Shop Update

Just a quick post... I made little teeny, silly Cherries. These will be going in the February Phat Fiber box & are in my etsy store now. Cute little things, only 3/4" tall & 1/4" wide.

Now, off to bed... got to work tomorrow & after that, back to the stitch marker factory....

Productivity.... A good thing

I've had a little bit of productivity around here this week & weekend. Thank goodness! I was beginning to feel as if I'd never get anything finished. I have a lot of in-progress works around here & it's nice to finally mark a couple off the to-do list. :)
First let me show you my Blue Sky batts that I did on my Fancy Kitty Kitten Drum Carder. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this drum carding thing. These are my best ones yet! I love them, & they will be going on the spinning wheel next. These were made from dyesoppers (wool of some sort)  from The Sheep Shed Studio (I overdyed some of the blue to be a darker/brighter blue), some faux angora & hand dyed icicle top from Paradise Fibers.

And Ron from Fancy Kitty was wanting some photos of his happy customers using their carders... so the hubby helped me out with that today. It was quite funny, he was snapping away like we were having a photo shoot or something. SNOL
So, here are a few photos of me creating the Blue Sky batts.

And I finished another hat! This is the Blue Moon Hat pattern by Linda Wilgus. (Ravelry link)

I used some of the leftover Berroco Ultra Alpaca yarn from my Colonnade, held double because the pattern called for bulky yarn. This was a quick, easy little project. And I like the finished hat, the Ultra Alpaca is ultra soft! :)

Today was the hubby's birthday, I took him to dinner at a little pizza place in town. He had pizza, I had an amazing dish of chicken, mushrooms, onions, & tomatos on thin spagetti with a butter/garlic sauce. Wow was that stuff good! I'm stuffed & sleepy.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Work?

What have I been doing at work the past few days? Checking in new doggie collars & adding them to our Webstore.

Aren't they cute?! And of course we got some new little ones for the itty bitty doggies this year. Yeah, a lot of them have fish on them, we are at the beach ya know. :)  If you want to check them all out, here is the Dog Collar page on our website....

I love this time of year here. It's not crazy long hours yet due to tourist season, and we are starting to get all of our stock in for the season. It's like getting tons of new pressies! :)  Now to just control myself & not buy one of everything we get in. LOL

Hope everyone is having a great week!

I just had to share...

I just wanted to share this beautiful day with everyone! It is sunny, a nice breeze & 62 degrees here!

Where does the time go?

Another weekend gone & I don't know where it went! Here is what I did accomplish this weekend, along with some laundry & grocery shopping.

348 yards of sport/light worsted weight merino yarn.

And Beth's daughter wanted some Zebra crochet markers, so I have Zebra additions to My Store. I think they came out cute.

And to all of my friends out there in blogland & ravelry & Facebook & email &..... I'm so sorry that I haven't replied to all of your blog posts, or to all of your emails in a timely fashion, or even made an appearance on FB in forever. I have really been feeling rushed & I can't seem to get everything in some kind of order around here. This started back before the holidays & seems to have continued into the new year. I've been trying to figure out a way to get myself organized, not successful at this point. Anyhoo... I want all of you to know that I'm still reading even if I don't comment all the time. I love all of my bloggy friends & wouldn't know what to do without all of you out there. :)  I hope to feel less overwhelmed in the near future & get things back to some kind of "normal", whatever that is!

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Soft, Fluffy Batts

Here are the latest batts to come off the carder. Talk about super soft!! This is the Targhee Merino that I got from Beth's Etsy Shop, some of my hand dyed Faux Angora & some of my hand dyed sparkly icicle top. I'm looking forward to spinning this & see how soft the yarn is compared to the batts, because the batts are really soft.

This....

Plus this...

= 5.8oz of fluffy soft fiber...

I'm walkin in High Cotton...

Ok, not really walkin in high cotton but what I got in the mail today reminded me of that Alabama song. LOL
5 lbs of cotton! Isn't it awesome?! I know, you all are thinking I'm nuts. But I'm so excited about this box stuffed full of fluffy, right off the plant, white stuff. I got all this from Monica, check out her etsy shop, she has great stuff there, not just cotton. She actually spins silk thread!

Of course I had to play with one of those white fluffs. It's incredibly soft, and much longer staple length than I had expected. And there are just tons of seeds in there too! I plan on planting some & see what happens this Spring. I live in the perfect place to grow cotton... hot, dry, sandy soil, long growing season. I've had no success with vegetables, maybe cotton will be just the thing.

Why am I so excited about this cotton you ask? Well, when I first started spinning I had dreams of being able to spin some nice cotton yarn, & actually knit some washcloths & hand towels from my own handspun. I know, kind of silly, but that is one of the first things that I thought of when I started spinning. I love to knit cloths, to use & give as gifts. And how awesome would it be to actually knit them with my own handspun?!

I also got in a great shipment of fiber from The Sheep Shed Studio today. (Thanks to those who gave me money at Christmas!)

Looks like I'm gonna have to give in & learn how to dye fiber. I was just able to get so much more fiber for the $ by buying the white. Although I did get a bad of Carol's dye soppers, they are awesome! Here we come drum carder!

And now that I've bored you all to tears with my fiber addiction...  Look at what Nichole sent me!

One of her awesome bracelets that she knitted. Thanks so much Nichole, I love it! I plan on wearing it tomorrow. :)

And on the orifice hook front.... I now have Llama Orifice Hooks!

And in closing, I had a pleasant surprise when I cast on for a cowl the other day. The red handspun that I thought was sport weight actually turned out to be more of a fingering weight. I was very pleased about that. I actually spun thin enough to get a 2-ply fingering weight yarn! And the new cowl is turning out great. When I get further along I'll take a photo. :)

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Shop Update

I have new orifice hooks in my Etsy Shop! I sent Beth a "test hook", she said she liked it & it was good to go, that I should put some in my shop... so I've made some that match my stitch markers.

Black Sheep Orifice Hook

White Sheep Orifice Hook

Sweet Pea Orifice Hook

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Mine has started out okay, nothing real exciting, I'll take that as a good thing. We sent our Marine off to MO again today. It was sad seeing him go but we were so lucky to have him home for the holidays!
I have a few things to show you.... I'll start with the project that I finished right before Christmas that I didn't want to post here about because it might have been seen...

This is my Starr Kitty Jr., knit from the Knitted Kitty pattern.

I knitted this cute little kitty as a Christmas present for my Childhood BFF. We are all grown up now, but you’re never too old for a cute stuffed kitty! :)


I knitted her with some of my handspun yarn, which contains cream wool & Starr (my BFF’s kitty) fur. So she is a kitty made with kitty fur! This was a quick & fun little project.

This is the real Starr.... we took some super cute photos of Starr with Starr Jr. at Christmas, I'll share them once Beth gets them downloaded. :)

Next up, I finished knitting a Calorimetry, with more of the pink/purple handspun. This was a quick knit, I used size 6 needles though. If I had used size 8 it would have been huge. I'm pleased with it, but I don't know how good it is going to be about keeping my ears warm... tends to want to slide off of them. And that's what I wanted it for, I wear my hair up the majority of the time & it would be nice to have something to keep the ears warm.

Next.... check out this great little bag that I got from Beth. It's a great small project bag, with wonderful pockets on the outside, just right for all your little extras like stitch markers, tape measure, note pad, etc! Go check out her etsy shop, Blue Mountain Handcrafts, she has more great bags & tons of awesome yarn & fiber!!

And I got this wonderfully soft Targhee Merino fiber, Violets & Moonlight, from Beth too. The photo doesn't do it justice. I'm looking forward to getting this on the drum carder!

And I finished up some spinning.... This is Falkland roving from Spinning The Web. I only got 170 yards of navajo plied yarn, but I love the yarn.

I hope 2010 brings everyone good things & peace.... please keep Barbara, Coffee Yarn, & her family in your thoughts.. they are having a rough beginning to the year.